A Social Entrepreneur

Ela Bhatt
 Introduction

Ela Ramesh Bhatt (born on 7 September 1933 in the

city of Ahmadabad in India) is the founder of the
Self-Employed Women's Association of India
(SEWA). A lawyer by training, Bhatt is a respected
leader of the international labour, cooperative,
women, and micro-finance movements who has won
several national and international awards.
 Life of Ela Bhatt:
• Ela Bhatt's childhood was spent in the city of Surat.
• Her father, Sumantrai Bhatt, had a successful law
practice. Her mother, Vanalila Vyas, was active in the
women's movement.
• Ela Bhatt attended the Sarvajanik Girls High School in
Surat from 1940 to 1948.
• She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the
M.T.B. College in Surat in 1952.
• Following graduation Ela entered the Sir L. A. Shah
Law College in Ahmedabad.
• In 1954 she received her degree in law and a Gold
Medal for her work on Hindu Law.
• Her professional carrier started with teaching
at Shrimati Nathibai Damodardas Thackersey
 (SNDT) Women’s University in Mumbai.
• In 1955 she joined the legal department of the
Textile Labour Association (TLA) in Ahmedabad.
• In 1956 she was married to Ramesh Bhatt.
• In 1961 she took up a position in the Labour ministry
of Gujarat and worked there for quite some time.
• She also served at positions for the vocational
training and guidance of the candidate in addition to
Job Placement.
• When, in 1968, she was asked by the Textile Labour
Association (TLA) to become head of its Women’s
Wing she rejoined the union, and took intense interest
in the women for whom she had worked in the
ministry.
• She was aware that thousands of wives and daughters
of textile workers, as well as other women, toiled as
self-employed junk-smiths, garment makers, vegetable
vendors and hawkers to supplement the family income.
• She conducted study on the condition of women in the
job fields of vegetable vendor, garment maker, used
garment vendor, junk-smith and milkmaid.
• Then with cooperation of Arvind Buch, president of
TLA , Ela Bhatt undertook to organize these self-
employed women into a union under the auspices of
the Women's Wing of the TLA.
• Then in 1972 the Self-Employed Women's
Association (SEWA) was established with Buch as
president and she herself as the general-secretary.
• One of the several problems faced by her was related
to the registration of SEWA with the government. The
government reluctantly agreed and the union was
registered in 1972 under the Trade Union Act of
1926.
• In 1974, to provide banking services to SEWA
members, she helped these women found SEWA
Bank, one of the pioneering institutions of the nascent
microcredit movement.
• Then in 1982 Ms. Bhatt founded Friends of Women’s
World Banking, India (FWWB),a microfinance
organization created to extend and expand informal
credit networks within India and link them to a global
movement.
 Other work and Award’s:
• She was one of the founders of Women's World
Banking in 1979 with Esther Ocloo and Michaela
Walsh, and served as its chair from 1980 to 1998.
• She currently serves as the Chair of the SEWA
Cooperative Bank, of HomeNet, of the International
Alliance of Street Vendors, and of WIEGO
• She is also a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation.
• She was granted an honorary Doctorate degree in
Humane Letters by Harvard University in June 2001.
• Ela Bhatt was also awarded the civilian honour of
Padma Shri by the Government of India in 1985, and
the Padma Bhushan in 1986. She was awarded the
Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership
in 1977 and the Right Livelihood Award in 1984.
• She has been chosen for the Niwano Peace Prize for
2010 for her contribution to the uplift of poor women
in India.
 Brief about SEWA
• The Self-Employed Women's Association of India
(SEWA) is a trade union for poor, self-employed
women workers in India.
• SEWA was founded in 1972 by Dr Ela Bhatt.
SEWA's main office is located in Ahmedabad,
Gujarat, and it works in several states of India.
• SEWA had a membership of 966,139 in the year
2008. SEWA members are women who earn a living
through their own labour or small businesses.
• They do not obtain regular salaried employment with
welfare benefits like workers in the organized sector.
• They are the unprotected labour force of India.
Constituting 93% of the labour force, these are
workers of the unorganized sector.
• Of the female labour force in India, more than 94%
are in the unorganized sector. However their work is
not counted and hence remains invisible.
• SEWA is a trade union of poor, self-employed
women.
• We have come together to form a union to stop
economic exploitation; we have formed our own bank
to build assets, to tap resources, to improve the
material quality of life.
• We have built trade cooperatives of women farmers
and artisans, and a trade facilitation network
connecting local and global markets; we have built a
social security network for our maternity needs,
health and life insurance.
• SEWA is more than a million members strong spread
across six states of India, and beyond.
• We come together in support of each other.
• Our goal is the wellbeing of the poor woman, her
family, her work, her community and the world we all
live in.
• We are in pursuit of self-reliance and freedom. We
realize what Mahatma Gandhi said that Freedom is
not given, it is generated within one’s self.
• My experience says that women’s work is that
guarantee of freedom coming from within.
• SEWA may be a local story or a South Asian story. It
is a local struggle but it has to meet global questions.
The local and the global have to combine in new
ways and new communities.
• The challenge now is to see how women’s work and
women’s idea of community and Nature can create
the new commons of peace.